Like sand through the hourglass, so is Europe

GROWING UP IN SOUTH AFRICA I LEARNT THE history of how South Africa was founded as a trading post by the Dutch, how it was taken over by the British in 1795, the Great Trek, the Boer Wars and of course the history and evolution of the political, social and economic landscapes since 1910.

My European history lessons were mostly confined to the two World Wars and the Cold War, all neatly summarised. Oh, there were bits on the dark and middle ages, and the Renaissance, but it never got down to the detail, like the evolution of the Greek and Roman empires and the formation of the United Kingdom. The social, political and economic nuances were entirely left out.

Now, travelling and working in Europe, I have found my passion for history awakened, not to mention the fact that understanding this continent is now a business imperative considering the influence history has on the present.

Since we arrived in the Netherlands I have tried to educate myself about politics within the European Union and around its edges. What I’ve found is a soap opera, something like the Bold and the Beautiful, except more outrageously unbelievable.

Not that I’m a political analyst, mind you, but it is hard not to reach that conclusion.

Consider: Western Europe is the domain of Germany, Britain and France. Germany is ruled by a fragile coalition established when Angela Merkel took over. Her predecessors were ousted because their economic reforms were too hard-line capitalist. Merkel supported those reforms, but had a leftist, more socialist outlook on how they should work and how far they should go. The reality is that Germany desperately needs to reform a stagnating economy struggling under a social burden. But the new coalition is under increasing pressure from the conservatives who blame everything – crime, slow growth, social problems and cultural decline – on either immigrants or the European Union or both.

The UK, by contrast, is boring despite the superficial drama. Pity Gordon Brown, who doesn’t have the spin and grin that Tony Blair commanded. Since his “new government” under his “new leadership” took over it has had to contend with Allistair Campbell criticizing it on the handling of floods, the handling of Northern Rock and the handling of confidential citizen data. That wouldn’t have been a problem if there was an iota of ideological difference between Messrs Brown and Campbell. The most interesting real debate is on how to handle a culture of teenage binge drinking. Even the new leader of the Liberal Democrats is being called a stunt double to Campbell.

In France, Nicolas Sarkozy won a hard-fought election on a platform that France desperately needs to reform both its economy and a social system that, like the rest of the government, is an overstaffed and inefficient bureaucratic nightmare. Before the election I didn’t even know that France had legislated a 35-hour working week (about half of what us real people pull) and actively discouraged overtime. Or that the core message in textbooks for secondary and tertiary education is that capitalism is legalised theft, preventable only when the state runs all industry on a non-profit basis. No wonder the commentators predicted that Sarkozy, though popular, would have a hard time effecting change. And they were right; witness the transport workers’ strike and the students protesting against being asked for money to study at university. When he tries to touch that bureaucracy the real fun will start. But at least his divorce and immediate second marriage (to a beautiful model, no less) adds a bit of flair missing from the proceedings elsewhere.

That’s just the internal issues of the three majors, and ignores such volatile places as Italy, or Eastern Europe with its fear of Russia (but its love of Russian gas) and its hatred of the West (but its love of Western money).

What do all of these have in common? I’d argue it is this: there is lots of drama and excitement and to-ing and fro-ing of actors, yet the more things change the more they stay the same. Just like any good soapie.